The online symposium and workshop is dedicated to the developments of the opera market in South Africa since democratisation, with a special focus on globalisation. It follows up on the symposium South African Opera Productions after the Apartheid at the University of Bayreuth in 2018.

In recent decades, not only have opera singers and directors made careers as individuals outside South Africa, but entire opera productions and concert formats have also toured successfully in the Global West. From a structural point of view the following questions are open to discussion: What new trends are emerging in consequence of the pandemic? Have digital formats changed the market in South Africa and outside South Africa? Are opera singers and opera companies now even more reliant than before on performing outside South Africa as cultural funding has dried up, or is this trend diminishing? And what role do universities play today as performance venues for opera in South Africa? Notwithstanding the above the international opera industry has been going through numerous transformation processes (institutionally and aesthetically) for some years now due to the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Are these processes comparable to South Africa or do we find other thematic focuses and motivations for transformation in South Africa? Is Blackness also being renegotiated in South Africa through the #BlackLivesMatter movement? Have issues of democracy become even more prominent in opera productions in recent years? How is South African identity recently being negotiated in South African operas?

As a Kick-off to the symposium and workshop you are invited to a hybrid event with South African choreographer Jessica Nupen. She will present her Dance/Rap/Opera The Nose (2021). Based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol, the current political and societal situation in South Africa is addressed. The questions under discussion are: Which position can opera take up in South African society? What influence can artistic production exert globally on postcolonial discourses? Additionally, the fascinating process of transformation of media in the production, which was developed during the pandemic and evolved from a live production to a film and then a hybrid installation, will be analysed based on substantial archival film footage. We will discuss how this process of transformation influences the aesthetic and the genre.

Please register for the panel discussion on the 12th May as well as for the symposium on the 13th May by contacting noemie.felber@unibe.ch and you will receive an email with the Zoom-link for the event.